It appears that malicious actors are not giving Balancer a break.
Balancer, a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol built on Ethereum, has issued an urgent warning to its community to avoid using its user interface.
On September 19th, at 11:49 PM UTC, Balancer advised users to be extremely cautious as the project's frontend was "under an attack." The company revealed that it had started an investigation into the matter.
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While the company has yet to confirm whether user funds have been impacted, contributor Cosme Fulanito assured that Balancer's vault is "100% fine."
This incident comes on the heels of a security assessment by blockchain security companies like PeckShield and analyst ZachXBT, who estimate that at least $238,000 in cryptocurrencies have been siphoned off.
Users have reported encountering prompts to approve malicious contracts, resulting in the draining of their digital wallets. One industry expert outlined the modus operandi of the attackers:
If you open the website it asks you to change the chain, where you hold the most amount of money. After that scam transaction is sent, after confirmation money are gone. Don't open the website!!!
Alarmingly, this is not the first time Balancer has faced security challenges. Less than a month ago, on August 22nd, the protocol alerted its community about a critical vulnerability. This was followed by an exploit that cost an estimated $2 million.
Although Balancer took steps to mitigate risks and informed its community on August 27th, they stated that affected liquidity pools couldn't be paused and advised users to withdraw from them.
The Balancer DeFi protocol is grappling with its second security breach in less than a month. While an investigation is underway, the recent attack has already resulted in a significant loss of funds, according to external assessments. Users are strongly advised to avoid interacting with the Balancer user interface as the situation unfolds.